Interesting is it to note in the midst of all this the steady action of another simple law in finance. Prisons, guillotines, enactments inflicting twenty years' imprisonment in chains upon persons twice convicted of buying or selling paper money at less than its nominal value, and death upon investors in foreign securities, were powerless. The National Convention, fighting a world in arms and with an armed revolt on its own soil, showed titanic power, but in its struggle to circumvent one simple law of nature its weakness was pitiable. The _louis d'or_ stood in the market as a monitor, noting each day, with unerring fidelity, the decline in value of the _assignat_; a monitor not to be bribed, not to be scared. As well might the National Convention try to bribe or scare away the polarity of the mariner's compass. On August 1, 1795, this gold _louis_ of 25 _francs_ was worth in paper, 920 _francs_; on September 1st, 1,200 _francs_; on November 1st, 2,600 _francs_; on December 1st, 3,050 _francs_. In February, 1796, it was worth 7,200 _francs_ or one franc in gold was worth 288 _francs_ in paper. Prices of all commodities went up nearly in proportion. [65] The writings of this period give curious details. Thibaudeau, in his Memoirs, speaks of sugar as 500 _francs_ a pound, soap, 230 _francs_, candles, 140 _francs_. Mercier, in his lifelike pictures of the French metropolis at that period, mentions 600 _francs_ as carriage hire for a single drive, and 6,000 for an entire day. Examples from other sources are such as the following:--a measure of flour advanced from two _francs_ in 1790, to 225 _francs_ in 1795; a pair of shoes, from five _francs_ to 200; a hat, from 14 _francs_ to 500; butter, to, 560 _francs_ a pound; a turkey, to 900 _francs_. [66] Everything was enormously inflated in price _except the wages of labor_. As manufacturers had closed, wages had fallen, until all that kept them up seemed to be the fact that so many laborers were drafted off into the army. From this state of things came grievous wrong and gross fraud. Men who had foreseen these results and had gone into debt were of course jubilant. He who in 1790 had borrowed 10,000 _francs_ could pay his debts in 1796 for about 35 _francs_. Laws were made to meet these abuses. As far back as 1794 a plan was devised for publishing official "tables of depreciation" to be used in making equitable settlements of debts, but all such machinery proved futile. On the 18th of May, 1796, a young man complained to the National Convention that his elder brother, who had been acting as administrator of his deceased father's estate, had paid the heirs in _assignats_, and that he had received scarcely one three-hundredth part of the real value of his share. [67] To meet cases like this, a law was passed establishing a "scale of proportion." Taking as a standard the value of the _assignat_ when there were two billions in circulation, this law declared that, in payment of debts, one-quarter